[29] FRANCHET, A.R. Archive of Franchet material.- 136 separately bound off-prints, collection of proof- and unpublished plates, almost all relating to Chinese Botany. All bound in contemporary paper wrappers, labelled in Chinese. Dated from 1866-1893.

($ 6,850)    fl.  15.000

An almost complete collection of Franchet's publications, mostly relating to Chinese botany. Adrien René Franchet (1834-1900) was an accomplished French botanist. Although he never visited China he contributed much to the progress of our knowledge of the Chinese flora. He was attached to the Herbarium of the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. At that time French missionaries in China were collecting plants for the Museum and were sending to Paris extensive and interesting collections of plants of regions never botanically explored. 'By working up these rich materials, Mr. Franchet has become a botanist of established reputation and one of the first authorities as far as Eastern Asiatic plants are concerned'. (Bretschneider II, p. 939).

The results were published in various, mostly, French botanical periodicals such as 'Journal de Botanie', 'Bull. de la Soc. Bot. de France', Bull. de la Soc. Linné. de Paris', 'Bull. du Muséum' etc. Included in the above is one complete set of Franchet's 'Plantae delavayanae plantes de Chine recueillis au Yun-nan par l'Abbé Delavay et décrits par A. Franchet. Paris, Klincksieck, 1889 (-1890). 8vo. pp. 120, with 46 lithographed plates. The last plate is included in a few copies only. Also included is the same work, complete with the text and a set of 60 proof plates of which plates 46-60 have never been published. The last plate 60 is double with a note 'à remplacer'. The proof plates are without a printed text, and plate number and plant names etc. have most probably been supplied by Franchet. Stafleu and Cowan note that 15 more plates (i.e. pls. 46-60) were prepared, but not published. 'Père Delavay joined the Société des Missions Etrangères and was sent to China in 1878. It was only in 1881, after Franchet had introduced him to David in Paris that he started to collect plants and send them back to the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle. In the next fourteen years, the Muséum received over 200,000 specimens, beautifully preserved, including about 1,500 new species, mostly from Yunnan.
Their study occupied Franchet for the rest of his life; he published the result in several journals and most notably in 'Plantae Delavayanae', which appeared in parts in 1889-90, but remained unfinished" (Rix, The art of the botanist p. 198). Included is a publication by Henri Hua 'La vie et les travaux de A. Franchet. Autun 1900.

The set belonged to the Japanese scientist Taku Nakamura of the Imperial University of Keijo (Seoel).

Stafleu & Cowan 1848; Bretschneider, History of European Botanical Discoveries II, pp. 935-6; Fournier, Voyages et découvertes scientifiques des missionaires naturalistes français, pp. 59-64.